"You're understood, Commander Belk." Apara listened, watching as Dennis spoke with something resembling respect, or at least something close enough to it in truth to help avoid sudden violence and grab her attention. The question might have been directed at the entire squad, but it was clearly designed for the cook. This had to be part of the "test", he was talking about earlier.
This whole situation was confusing for her. "Politics" Dennis had said. What the fuck did she care about being liked? What the fuck did Dennis care?
The human had no real interest in who his commander was, and neither did she. From her understanding of it, command had never involved actual direct management unless the situation called for a firmer hand. For the most part it was just a group of individuals nominally interested in keeping each other alive. They were made to go in certain directions, and take out certain targets. The "how" and "why" was rarely ever brought up, especially when half the time the orders were "fuck up as much people as you can find, as fast as you can find them. So how he acted barely mattered so long as it wasn't outright disrespectful and didn't show too much weakness.
So why was Dennis going out of his way to act subserviently? Wasn't the "test" to gauge whether he was a worthwhile fighter? She wasn't certain how a fight might go between the two, but while it would likely be in Belk's favor it would be hard fought enough to destroy doubts of his competence. Sure Dennis might be wounded enough to miss the first hours of the purge, but wouldn't it be simpler to challenge him directly? A good showing would guarantee his survival if he made an official challenge. They had both proved they had value already, but that would cement it in exactly the way he was looking for.
Yet as she stood between the feathered biped and the spiky coward she watched as Dennis smiled politely, his eyes never looking away from that of their new commander. Apara's eyes narrowed as she watched Dennis' hand clench and unclench with a sudden pop. She felt his energy for a moment, twisting and coiled like an ambush predator. He was excited, and yet he was letting himself be taken away from prying eyes. Away from eyes that would protect him so long as he showed what defined everyone in the PTO.
Apara had been watching Dennis for months now. He didn't get excited at the idea of fighting opponents stronger than himself, even if he could win. Especially not against one of the strongest fighters aboard the ship. He got excited when he had a chance to prove he was better than something else. When he was confident in winning so completely there was no doubt, only blood and his laughter. Anything else and he bowed his head to aggressors and she watched as he started to study them much more closely. He always fought harder on days like those. She made sure to poke at him just so he would.
Dennis wasn't fighting now, and he wasn't seething over submission, so what was he doing?
He was playing with something. But if he wouldn't take the simple choice, what was he planning?
I had been considering how to approach the purges for some time now. If I let it be something as simple and dangerous as a constant struggle for survival I'd be leaving myself open for the inevitable fate of those who advance. I'd be just another low-class warrior.
I've seen worlds burn. I've tasted them die, heard the endless call for mercy of foes long since surrendered. I've felt the innocent confusion of those who'd never even heard of us be tainted by the despair of powerlessness and the indignity of genocide. Once I could never bring myself to look away from it, to willingly close myself to the death happening all around felt like I was denying it was happening at all. So I watched in a manner more intimately than an individual should ever be subjected to. Eventually I understood it. In every capacity. Countless worlds. Countless bodies. Eventually the grief gave way to a colder kind of observation. In the darkness of it I now see a path forward.
The memories of my beginning stirred something in me. I felt something like pity, something like regret bubble in the barest corners of my heart as my energy reached out into the battle I knew would soon become just another atrocity. What might have been remorse skirted through my mind. A touch of pity I couldn't help but acknowledge before I crushed it, warping it into something I could use. My tongue brushes over my front teeth.
Moments later, when I look out the hastily opening doors of the Frosts Hangar Bay, watching as fire rains from a dozen ships just like ours across the black of night from every conceivable direction, I find myself feeling something different. Satisfaction, excitement even. I close my eyes and inhale the scent of burning plasma. An open battlefield, a place to observe the possibilities arrayed before me without prying eyes. Even if Belk watched every second of my time in this world, he'd never even begin to comprehend what I was up to in its entirety. I was even being suspected of cowardice. Of running away once I finally failed to compete. It was insulting. To what end would I leave now? I have no teachers. No grand masters or wise leaders to turn to for shelter or survival to make safe progress in. No one worth seeking out would take me even if I found them.
Above our heads red lights blared with sudden intensity. The sound that came with them was half alarm and half call to battle. Squads all around us scrambled as they jumped off the ship and into the frey. Soon commander Belk was yelling as he pushed someone off their perch.
"Now!" He roared, diving forward and blasting away at the nearest battle power over five hundred. A bird headed man, A spiked Albino newbie, and a Naldinnian followed after him. The Saiyan girl looked at me, a shark-like grin gracing her features. I smiled back. She would wait for me. Follow me if I ask.
That girl was a constant bubbling cauldron of bloodlust and hunger for a fight. Just being around her was constantly fraying my patience, but it was hard to ignore the fact that without her my own progress would have been far slower. If she was learning from me I had to be learning from her as well. It was a necessary step. If not the only one.
I lifted a foot into the air, leaning outward and letting myself fall into a cityscape filled to every nook and cranny with innocent life and those seeking to protect it. This was my feeding ground. This was my salvation. This would be the master at whose feet I learned at and at whose beck I served. I would worship at the altar of this chaos and in return it would give me the power I needed. If I couldn't evolve as simply as Apara could and did I would simply make my own way.
Apara had been with me a few months and while I had grown by leaps and bounds she was already chasing down my level of strength like a starving dog. It was expected, and also entirely unacceptable considering. Since I wasn't going to kill her anytime soon, or hopefully at all, I had to expect that one day she'd be stronger than I am, but If I allowed her to pass me so easily I was only proving to the universe I would always be less than a Saiyan or Namek or whatever else in the same position. This could not be allowed. Not without a fight. Not until I expended every avenue and every piece of myself I had left to give.
I might have selected her to be my protector, I might have chosen to save that girl to pull at my own survival, but I could not abide her being my better. She was the clearest goalpost I could have asked for, the biggest hint I needed to know what was to come. An ever growing and ever evolving foe with exactly the kind of power I was afraid of. So I would not lay down. Therein lay my answer.
If true techniques and strength like those of Goku or Piccolo might have one day came at the cost of the blood sweat and tears of a generation of pioneers preceding oneself, then my strength would have to come at the sacrifice of places like this to stand before the scope of what the cosmos would present me. I would break these people as ordered in every way I could think of, I would test every vile idea that came to mind on their protectors, and every battlefield I walk away from will leave me just a little stronger. I still had more to give, and nothing to lose.
What awaited me as I dropped below the ship was a wall of laserfire and energy blasts I couldn't help but blink at. We had been told to expect resistance, and what I was seeing was technically true, but ultimately far short of the actual scale of what was unfolding. I couldn't dodge it so much as choose what damage to take and where on my body to take it. I guarded my head and eyes from the sheer volume of light, focusing only on the attacks I could actually sense coming my way.
What was left to actually strike me was wave after wave of that same burning plasma I could smell in the air, burning at my uniform even as I expended precious energy to see my skin left untouched aside from a swathe of stinging pink flesh now exposed to the open air. Unlike everyone else I did not seek out a foe in the open sky, instead flying directly downward, plummeting at supersonic speeds towards ground I could not see.
Miles of skyscrapers and weapons emplacements passed me by, fading away into a blur of light and motion I didn't care to follow. I pulled one fist back, rocketing it forward into sheer stone and whatever they used for concrete around here. I couldn't help but laugh when it broke before I did, and I crashed through the ceiling of a military installation.
It was time to get to work.
I remained crouched in the epicenter of my fall, watching sediment dust settle around a dozen Galactic Patrol defenders with power levels around 300. Monitors lined the walls, and I saw hundreds of video feeds keeping track of every battle they could, and recording quite a few they couldn't truly follow beyond barely visible blurs and booming strikes that sent shudders of static throughout the recording device. Bright fluorescent lighting illuminated every inch of the room.
I eagerly reached out with my ki in every direction, sending tendrils whispering past every soul in the room in a manner that would have been immediately notable to anyone with an idea of how to sense energy. No one flinched, and not a man or woman or otherwise reacted beyond the surprise of my entry.
Chairs and debris were scattered in every direction around me, and closest to me I saw a brightly furred mass in the vague shape of a human begin to step in my direction, soon followed by his fellows as their scouter equivalents showed me a manageable threat. Interestingly these creatures were more alien to my eyes than most of the individuals I saw aboard the Dilligent Frost and the few Freeza Force worlds I had stepped foot on.
The hand I had planted on the shattered stone beneath me flexed, and every source of light in the room flickered out as I drew my sword. Moments later I heard a chorus of surprised yells as the delicate machinery on their faces exploded into nothing more than scattered wiring and acrid smoke. A wave of ki blasts pockmarked the crater I crouched in instants prior, and I was holding a hand over the mouth of a screaming little gray man as my blade dug into his guts. I adjusted my grip, tightening my palm over his mouth so that no sound escaped. I waited and listened as I redirected the flow of my energy to match that of my unfortunate prisoner, just in case someone had another way to track my position.
"Is everyone alright?" I heard a voice ask, knowing it belonged to the red furred being who first made to attack me.
"I'm alright" A green mass of slime reported
"Alive" Said a yellow haired woman.
"Rattled, but functioning." Said a humanoid alligator.
A few more affirmations met my twitching ears as the struggles in my grasp began to slow, before renewing as he felt my ki touch his own. I felt my arm shake with the strain as his ki built in strength with the help of my own, before my victim heaved. Quaking violently, I felt as the change tore through his body.
I had been aware of it even before my time with Freeza Force and the PTO, but I had once discovered the hard way that the ki that existed in all living things was difficult to manipulate, and deadly to those who manipulated it. Actually pulling strength away from the universe around yourself was not only difficult, but ultimately more than likely to kill you. The energy might give you a temporary boost, but any significant amount would surely end your life without some means of protecting yourself.
I assume being "pure of heart" was one of those means, but regardless I had been sick for nearly a week after bringing in about 30 units of ki into myself. It would have been much worse if I hadn't been quick to purge it. I hadn't ever worked on the concept after that, but recently something occurred to me .
What if I purposefully drew foreign energy into another individual, like my own for example? Of course I had no clue what could happen aside from the likely death of the individual in question, but I was eager to see the results.
The gray man was "gifted" with about 80 units if it was broken down by relative battle power as marked by the average scouter. By the time I let him go, kicking him into a crowd, It had already made several rotations throughout his body, and the system he used to contain his own energy. I had felt as it perpetuated itself in the "clean" of his natural power, growing like a cancer.
I studied every rotation, every stray movement and every twitch of his energy as it violently rejected itself, and his body rejected it in turn.
I heard a yell in disgust as someone was puked on, before the alarm in their voices rose at the sound of a trusted ally and friend begging for mercy as he held his midsection. Finally someone held up a palm of burning energy to illuminate the gray man as he howled, limbs twisting in every direction as he felt his body burn from the inside out. When he died it was with a whimper.
I hummed at the sight, before stepping out of the shadow and burying a blade halfway into someone's skull. My energy flared, signaling Apara to stay relatively close to me from her own position as she worked her way down from the roof of a neighboring building.
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